Fuji Television

Fuji Television Network, Inc. (株式会社フジテレビジョン) is a Japanese television station based in Daiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It is also known as Fuji TV (フジテレビ;Fuji Terebi) or CX, based on the station's callsign, JOCX-TV.

Overview

Fuji Television is the flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (フジネットワーク; FNS). It also operates three premium television stations, Fuji TV 721, an entertainment channel; Fuji TV 739, a sports channel; and Fuji TV CSHD, a High-definition channel. It is owned by the Fujisankei Communications Group (フジサンケイグループ, Fuji Sankei Gurūpu).

On Wednesday, February 26, 1986, the first episode of the Dragon Ball TV series premiered directly into a prime time spot on the Fuji Television network. Due to the manga still being written as the show was airing, Toei Animation would occasionally create original anime-only side-stories, or sometimes even entire story arcs, to ensure that the development of the television show was kept behind that of the manga. This anime-only material is often referred to "filler," as it "fills" the space between events that do occur in the Dragon Ball manga.

As the story progressed, Dragon Ball had become much more action-oriented. To denote this change, along with a considerable plot twist, the title of the anime was changed to Dragon Ball Z, while the manga's title remained the same and had aired from April 26, 1989 to January 31, 1996. Dragon Ball Z would follow up and expand upon Dragon Ball's 153 episodes and three theatrical movies, with 291 episodes, 2 feature-length TV specials, and 13 theatrical movies of its own.

Following the conclusion of both the anime and manga series, Toei Animation picked up the rights to create an additional anime-only series, Dragon Ball GT, which first aired on February 7, 1996 one week after the final episode of Dragon Ball Z. The Dragon Ball GT storyline picked up right where Dragon Ball Z had left off, but brought back the comedic aspect of the original series that had been so sparse throughout Dragon Ball Z and eventually brought back the action-tone of Dragon Ball Z in later episodes. The series had almost reached two years, when it was brought to an abrupt end on November 19, 1997, due to low ratings. For the first time in nearly twelve years, the Fuji TV line-up did not include a Dragon Ball series.

In early 2009, Toei Animation announced (in Weekly Shounen Jump issue #11) that a "refreshed" version of the Dragon Ball Z TV series, re-titled Dragon Ball Kai, was being produced for a high-definition (HD) widescreen presentation in honor of its 20th anniversary. The first "refreshed" episode aired on April 5, 2009 (Akira Toriyama's birthday) with re-recorded dialogue, new music, updated sound effects, and new digital effects. Toei Animation's announcement stressed that the series would have a higher "sense of excitement", indicating that the majority, if not all, of the "filler" would be cut, consequently shortening the series from its original 291 episodes.

In the summer of 2015, Toei Animation created a new series, Dragon Ball Super, which first aired on July 5, 2015. The Dragon Ball Super storyline takes place between Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT and it had expanded upon Dragon Ball Z's 291 episodes with the first 31 episodes and 2 theatrical movies of its own.